Hearing plane announcements

Hurrah! It’s Thankful Friday again and today, I am thankful for my latest visitors – French Cousin 3 and his girlf, whose blog name I have yet to decide on.

They arrived last night – him from Birmingham, where he is studying, her from Paris, where she works and I found them huddled in the cold by the tube. It’s cold alright, and poor French Cousin 3 forgot his hat, so this morning he departed wearing a rather fetching crochet and flower-adorned number belonging to his girlf!

He did look funny!

I am also thankful that tomorrow I can sleep, relax and hang out with London Aunt, reminiscing that this time last week we were on our way to Barcelona – or actually just delayed at Heathrow for hours and hours and hours due to a French air traffic control strike.

Pah

Hopefully this weekend I will also collect the amazing photographs that London Aunt took so I can upload them along with my account of how fantastic the weekend was.

It really was!

The only bit I’d like to change is the flight home.

You see, I’m not that keen on flying. Something about the announcements sends me into a tailspin – I can’t hear them but I can hear the voice, so in my head I’m hearing, ‘The plane is failing, we’re gonna crash!’ which is bonkers, I know, but I can’t help it.

So anyway, as you know, last weekend there was a terrible storm lashing France and Spain and I was more than a little worried that the flight home would be bumpy and plagued with apocalyptic announcments – and, feeling a little fragile as a result of alcohol, I decided to ask the BA air steward on arrival on the place if the journey to Barcelona had been bumpy.

‘Oh, yes!’ she said, brightly.

BRIGHTLY!!!?

‘How could she be cheerful about this?’ I wondered. And then she saw my face paling at the prospect of bumps, unheard announcements and a hangover in a confined space and realised she’d said the wrong thing.

I sat down with a huff beside London Aunt and took out my crossword puzzle, but my hangover prevented me from reading the clues, let alone understanding them.

Closing my eyes, I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was the lovely air steward from earlier to check I was OK – even though we had yet to leave the gate. I assured her I was fine but just hated turbulence, while London Aunt threw quizzical looks at me.

Not content however, the lovely air steward went and got the pilot from the cockpit to have a personal chat to me. London Aunt by this point was hiding behind her paper, cringing with embarrassment, while I felt like a 5-year-old child.

In many ways, I was most impressed by the service I was given – it’s just that, I only wanted to know if there was going to be bumps on the way back to London. That’s all!!!! I didn’t want to be the focal point of the plane, which I was fast becoming.

And then came the icing on the cake. The empty seat beside us was waiting to be filled by the MOST gorgeous man – except he couldn’t sit down as the pilot was having a chat to me. He was stood behind, smirking at me, as I went redder, and redder until I practically shooed the captain away to fly the bloomin’ plane.

By this point, my mouth and brain were completely disengaged and when he signalled that his seat was in our row I declared, ‘Fabulous!’ a little too loudly.

The cabin once again focussed on me.

He sat down, a little baffled.

I sat down, red.

London Aunt sat down laughing so hard, the Daily Mail she was hiding behind started to quiver uncontrollably.

‘Made a new friend I see,’ he teased.

‘Erm, bliuejhvskdjhkv kjhkh’ I replied, quite unable to speak.

Once more, a quizzical look.

Once more, a red-faced DG.

When the place landed, I clapped – which in context was an illustration to something I was saying to London Aunt – but out of context, to the cute boy made me look like some sort of Fruit Loop.

I learned something on that flight, you know. And here it is: Never, ever fly hungover and ask an over-enthusiastic air stewards about turbulence… especially not when the cutest boy you’ve met for some time sits right down beside you.

Travelling it seems, is insanely bad for my love life.